St. Augustine's Conception of the State
In his celebrated lecture on the Confessions of St. Augustine the late Professor Adolf von Harnack declared: “Between St. Paul the Apostle and Luther the Reformer, the Christian Church has possessed no one who could measure him- self with Augustine; and in comprehensive influence no other is to be c...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1935
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| In: |
Church history
Year: 1935, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, Pages: 16-42 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | In his celebrated lecture on the Confessions of St. Augustine the late Professor Adolf von Harnack declared: “Between St. Paul the Apostle and Luther the Reformer, the Christian Church has possessed no one who could measure him- self with Augustine; and in comprehensive influence no other is to be compared with him.” Not only was this North African bishop the chief luminary of Western Christendom in his own generation, but through his writings he fairly dominated the philosophy, the theology, and the ethics of the Middle Ages; he stimulated the medieval mystics, alike those who accepted and many of those who rejected the traditional dogmas; he inspired both the so-called forerunners of the Reformation and the leading humanists of the Renaissance; and in large measure he moulded the evangelical faith and piety of the Lutheran and especially of the Reformed churches from the days of their founders down to our own times. But in no realm of thought or life was his influence more potent or historically more significant than in that characteristic development of the relations of church and state that marked the millenial period beginning, less than half a century after his death, with the fall of the Western Empire in the year 476. He was the weightiest authority to whom emperors and popes could and did appeal for support in their age-long contest for the supreme power: the former to vindicate their independence in secular affairs, and the latter to prove their lordship over all other earthly potentates, whether temporal or spiritual. |
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| ISSN: | 1755-2613 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Church history
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3160702 |